The present invention relates to an apparatus for vending articles, and in particular to an improved newspaper vending machine.
Most conventional newspaper vending machines consist of a single cubic cavity for holding a plurality of newspapers. A person purchases a newspaper from such a machine by inserting the appropriate coins into the machine and thereby gaining access to the newspaper-holding cavity. The purchaser then removes a newpaper.
However, once access is gained to the newspaper-holding cavity, a person may also remove additional newspapers which were not paid for. This form of theft or pilfering can add up to significant losses for a newspaper vendor.
Several different approaches have been taken to design a vending machine that prevents this kind of pilfering of newspapers and other articles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,645,442 (Meyer) discloses a newspaper vending machine consisting of a vertically disposed drum rotatably mounted on a horizontal axis. This drum includes a plurality of radial pockets open at their outer ends. The pockets are filled with a newspaper when they are in an upright position. When a pocket is in a downwardly inclined position, the newspaper will slide, under the force of gravity, from the pocket and through outer end of the drum, via a chute, to the purchaser. The drum is rotated by a lever which is activated by a coin controlled mechanism.
While the Meyer vending machine is designed to prevent newspaper theft, it has some shortcomings. First, newspapers must be loaded in this machine one-at-a-time at the situs of the machine. Thus, it take significantly longer for a newspaper deliveryman to load several Meyer machines than to load the same number of conventional single-cavity vending machines. The cost of the additional labor needed to load the Meyer machines may greatly outweigh the potential pilfering losses that may be incurred with single-cavity machines. Second, the purchaser must stoop close to the ground to pick up the purchased newspaper since this machine is a gravity-based system. Third, the coin-controlled drum-advancing mechanism of the Meyer machine is not well suited for versatility. The mechanism includes a separate coin slot for each pocket. The size of the coin slot corresponds to the size of the coins needed to activate the machine. Thus, every time the price of the newspaper is changed, the size of every coin slot must be changed.
Another type of vending machine that permits only the purchased article to be removed from the machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,116,599 (Madsen). The Madsen machine includes a plurality of radial compartments on a horizontally disposed disk. The compartments are open at the ends and are accessible through a sliding door on the vertical face of a cylinder enclosing the disk. The cylinder is provided with a glass lid to disclose the contents of the compartments. An elaborate pull rod system is provided for imparting intermittent movement to the disk whereby compartments are brought successively in juxtaposition with the door opening. The purchaser may bring any compartment into alignment with the door by successively pulling and releasing the pull rod. When it is desired to remove a commodity from the compartment juxtaposed to the sliding door, a coin is inserted into a mechanism which unlocks the door.
The Madsen machine is obviously intended for vending a plurality of different articles rather than a plurality of identical newspapers. Thus, there would be some drawbacks in adapting a Madsen machine for vending newspapers. First, the rotating disk of this machine is not readily removable. Thus, like the Meyer machine, newspapers would have to be loaded into this machine one-at-a-time at the situs of the machine. Second, since newspapers on any given day are identical, there is no need for a mechanism that will allow any compartment to be brought in juxtaposition with the sliding door. A simpler device will suffice.